Deeds, 1331-1875, mainly relating to lands in Flintshire but including also deeds relating to the manor of Exhall, Warwickshire, 1629-1823; estate papers, 1646-1934, including rentals and accounts, 1666-1908, surveys, particulars and valuations, 1646-1845, correspondence, 1665-1915, plans, [early 18 cent.]-1934, and sale particulars,[late 18 cent.]-1832; family papers, [mid 16 cent.]-1915, including marriage settlements, 1584-1864, wills, 1668-1864, accounts and financial papers, 1661-1915, diaries of a continental tour, 1823-1824; papers of Field Marshal Sir Alured Clarke, 1759-1830, including copy journal of the legislative council of the province of Lower Canada, 1792-1793, and minutes as Commander in Chief of the East India Company, 1798-1801; deeds relating to lead mines in Flintshire, 1723-1763; and accounts and papers for lead mines on Mold Mountain, 1736-1742. Miscellaneous papers include a letter book, 1614-1624, of Richard Sackville, earl of Dorset, relating to Sussex military affairs.
The archive contains a group of documents previously held at the National Library of Wales, which have been amalgamated with the two deposits at the Flintshire Record Office.
This schedule is a completely revised and re-arranged list of the Rhual MSS previously deposited in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the two deposits made in the former Flintshire Record Office in 1958 and 1972. Major B.H.P Heaton, the owner of Rhual, had long wished to re-unite the collection as in many cases material in the one repository complemented that in the other. In 1985 it was agreed that the records held by the National Library since 1949 should be transferred to the Clwyd Record Office at Hawarden and it was decided to prepare a new schedule of the whole collection which would allow items of a similar nature to be brought together in a more logical arrangement. This has involved re-numbering of all the items, but the old references have been provided at the back of the volume so it is hoped that any minor inconvenience this may cause to researchers who had used the collection previously will be outweighed by the advantage of having all the material in one place.
The collection contains much important and interesting material of a very varied character. The diary of Nehemiah Griffith, 1715, which was published by the Chester Archaeological Society in 1909 is perhaps the best-known item, but there are other eighteenth-century diaries and a group of papers relating to elections in Flintshire in the 1720s and 30s which are of equal historical value. The collection is also rich in correspondence reflecting the official, religious and military interests of the Edwards, Griffith and Philips families and their concern for the future of Rhual from the time of the Civil War to the early nineteenth-century when financial pressures forced its much-regretted sale. Sir Alured Clarke, who bought back the greater part of it to restore it to the family, also left with them many of his papers including personal diaries and letters and some of his official journals relating to his military appointments in Canada and India.